GOP fears ghost of Katrina

TAMPA, Fla. — The official message couldn’t be clearer: the Republican National Convention will proceed Tuesday morning, period.

More quietly, Republicans have begun to whisper a grim word that sums up all their fears about the 2012 party gathering: Katrina.

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No longer is GOP fretting focused on the prospect of Tropical Storm Isaac striking Tampa and blowing up party’s plans to crown Mitt Romney as its nominee. There’s still the possibility of logistical disruptions, but an epic meteorological mess doesn’t appear to be in the offing here.

Instead, party officials and convention planners are increasingly anxious about a different and possibly more damaging scenario: a split-screen broadcast of Republicans partying in Tampa alongside images of serious storm damage in states such as Louisiana and Mississippi.

Some Republicans here worry the juxtaposition of events could revive memories of the disastrous 2005 storms — Hurricanes Katrina and Rita — and the government’s terrible handling of them.

Public outrage over the George W. Bush administration’s response to those catastrophes — Katrina especially — shadowed the president and the GOP for years. For Republicans, Katrina is their version of the Carter administration’s failed Iranian hostage rescue in 1980 — an enduring symbol of collective incompetence, a political wound that will not heal.

For the 2012 convention to move ahead amid another Gulf Coast disaster could make Romney and his supporters look oblivious to the plight of the victims — or at the very least, leave them competing for media attention for a full week with a disaster response effort.

Isaac is not expected to create Katrina’s extreme level of havoc. But Republicans are bracing for the political impact anyway, and have not ruled out the possibility of cancelling or revising the remaining three days of the convention.

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who led his state through Katrina, said he believes the convention will still be a “springboard for Romney and Ryan,” but acknowledged that the storm could force additional changes to the schedule.

“My governor is home in Mississippi where he’s supposed to be, getting ready, and I think that’s true about the other Gulf State governors,” Barbour said at a poll briefing here for the group Resurgent Republic. “Everybody here has got one eye on this storm.”

Barbour said, on a fatalistic note: “There’s one thing you can predict about hurricanes: they’re unpredictable.”

In an interview with ABC News, House Speaker John Boehner invoked Katrina by name to express dismay at the approaching storm: “After what [the Gulf states have] been through with Katrina, to have another big hurricane come there, it’s a cause for concern.”

Family Research Council head Tony Perkins, a former Louisiana legislator, told POLITICO in a phone call from his home state that he doesn’t know “there’s anything the RNC can do differently” until it’s clear how strong Isaac will grow.

“Obviously if it were a storm of the Katrina capacity, then it would change the focus of the RNC. The only way to really avoid this is if they have the convention in December or out of hurricane season,” Perkins said. “It’s unfortunate, because it’s certainly going to put a damper on the enthusiasm for the convention, especially those in the affected areas. They’re going to have their eye on the Weather Channel and not on the convention.”

And one Republican involved in responding to the storm went so far as to call it “the first crisis of the putative Romney presidency.”

“How does he handle this? How does he balance the political needs of the convention versus what may appear to be the needs of the country?” the operative asked. “The worst he can be right now is self-interested or overly political.”

In private conversations, a number of Republicans with ties to Romney’s campaign sounded more frustrated, grumbling at the constant speculation that the convention could disintegrate under the weight of the weather. They have had to bat down a seemingly endless series of rumors about the fate of the party conclave, including suggestions that the convention could be extended into Friday or cancelled altogether.

But former GOP presidential nominee John McCain also set a high bar for sensitivity in situations like this one. In 2008 — just three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans — McCain canceled the first day of his convention in St. Paul out of respect for the victims of another storm, Hurricane Gustav, which didn’t event touch down in Minnesota but wreaked damage in along the Gulf Coast.